Nalchik Launched the “Towards Safety” Campaign

09 August 2017

The Kabardino-Balkar Republic launched the comprehensive social program “Towards Safety”. The project is implemented as part of the Federal Target Program “Increasing Road Traffic Safety in 2013–2020” with the support of the State Motor Vehicle Inspectorateof the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the “Risk-Free Road Traffic” Expert Center. It is aimed at working with various groups of population to reduce the number of road traffic accidents (RTA), injuries, and deaths on motor roads.

On August 8, Nalchik hosted the announcing press conference attended by Major-General of Police Sergey Dobryakov, the Deputy Head of the Main Road Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation; Aliy Musukov, the President of the Government of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic – the Chairman of the Governmental Commission of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic for Road Traffic Safety; Andrey Shemelin, the Deputy General Director of the Federal Governmental Institution “Directorate for Management of the Federal Target Program “Increasing Road Traffic Safety in 2013–2020”; Vadim Melnikov, the Director of the “Risk-Free Road Traffic” Expert Center; Vladimir Bolotkov, the Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic; Arsen Kudaev, the Chairman of the State Committee of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic for Transport and Communication – the Deputy Chairman of the Governmental Commission of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic for Road Traffic Safety, as well as representatives of the State Motor Vehicle Inspectorate of the regional subdivision of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, transport, education, health care departments, directors of driving schools, educational institutions and camps, social protection bodies, non-governmental organizations, and media.

Aliy Musukov was the first to address his words of thanks to the campaign organizers. He stated that the Kabardino-Balkar Republic pays great importance to road traffic safety. The main areas of their activity were reducing the number of death on the roads, development of safe behavior skills of children on the roads, enhancing driving culture, development of assistance systems for road accident victims. The Governmental Commission of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic for Road Traffic Safety actively works in this area. The work carried out in recent years allowed them to decrease the number of death on transport by 35% in the period from 2012 to 2016, including that of children, by 78%. For six months of the current year, the mortality rate on the Republic’s road has decreased by another third against the same period of the previous year.

The Republic attaches an increased attention to the organized transportation of children by buses. It is carried out in compliance with the current regulatory legal acts. Drivers’ training is also important, because one of the reasons for a high accident rate is the lack of their proper training. The Republic conducts the construction of a multipurpose sports center of the Higher Driving Skills: “Caucasus-Autocity”; completed the renovation of the children's and youth motor school designed for simultaneous training of 200 people.

An important factor in ensuring road traffic safety is the development of the general behavior culture of road users via media. Since the beginning of 2017, the media of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic have published and aired 2’906 materials on the topic of road traffic injuries, including the children’s ones.

Sergey Dobryakov also supported the words of gratitude addressed to all the organizers of the “Towards Safety” social program and noted the active support of the project by the authorities of the Republic. He reminded that the country’s leaders set an ambitious task: reducing the death rate by more than 30% before 2020. Its effective solution needs joining efforts and involving public authorities at all levels, the expert community, the media, representatives of the blogosphere, public organizations, as well as socially active citizens.

He noted that in the first seven months of 2017 a decrease in the accident main indices has been recorded in the territory of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic. At the same time, the situation around the safety of the most vulnerable group of road users – children and pedestrians – is still problematic. Thus, the number of accidents involving minors has increased by almost 9%, and one of four RTAs in the Republic is a pedestrian collision, the number of which has increased by 13%. Most collisions – eight of ten accidents – occur through the fault of pedestrians. Analytical data show that three of four pedestrian collisions were due to their own carelessness. The main reasons are crossing the street outside a pedestrian crossing, even if it is located nearby, suddenly getting out to the road from behind parked cars.

The “Towards Safety” campaign will help pedestrians and drivers, including bicyclists, to better know the traffic rules.

The project is addressed to all groups of road users. Drivers will learn how to choose the right speed based on weather and traffic conditions, to always fasten their seat belt and to monitor the use of passenger seat belts, as well as transport children only using children’s restraints. Pedestrians will know the reasons for using reflectors and why is it so important to always comply with the traffic rules, when crossing a road, even if it seems sometimes that there is no danger. Bicyclists will learn about the purpose of the helmet and be taught the Road Traffic Rules.

The key element of the campaign is a safety vehicle complete with modern equipment and a set of useful devices, which will allow for the experts to explain the Road Traffic Rules in an accessible and clear way. Its mobility makes it possible to travel exactly where the target audience spends their time: kindergartens, social institutions, maternity hospitals, city parks. This is a unique approach to the prevention of road injuries, which has no analogues due to its mobility, innovativeness, and orientation to all population groups.

“One of the main objectives of the project is giving an impulse for further public awareness work in the Republic,” Vadim Melnikov stressed. “We want the developments that were made during the campaign to be actively used when working with the population after the end of the main events. These are materials that can be used by media, and methodical manuals for social workers, and much more.”

He stated that all the events are constantly analyzed to assess their efficiency. Before the campaign start and after its end, sociological survey is carried out. Thus, before launching the campaign, a survey showed that during the last month more than half of the Republic’s residents had seen a child crossing the street outside a pedestrian crossing or a child crossing the street in a hood or headphones. 69% of respondents said that they did not use reflectors to make them visible on the road at night or under poor visibility conditions, and every tenth heard for the first time about reflective elements during the survey.

There is also an ambiguous situation around the transportation of children. In the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, 77% of parents with children under 12 years old have a child seat of another child restraint, but, contrary to the road traffic rules, almost every second interviewed parent does not use any of these devices when transporting children in a taxi, in the cars of friends and relatives.

Andrey Shemelin told that for over 10 years the Russian Federation has successfully implemented a program to increase road traffic safety: the Federal Target Program “Increasing Road Traffic Safety in 2013–2020” is a continuation of the Federal Target Program “Increasing Road Traffic Safety in 2006–2012”. Over these years, despite the growth of the national motor vehicle fleet, the number of motor vehicle accidents and the number of death in RTAs have significantly decreased.

The Federal Target Program provides not only information and advocacy work, but also infrastructure changes. During the program implementation since 2014, the Russian Federation has purchased and installed over 2.5 thousands sets of automatic video recording of the Road Traffic Rules violations; kindergartens have received 3.4 thousand sets of equipment for training younger children in the basics of safe behavior on the roads; over 3 million reflective elements have been distributed among schoolchildren, 307 kilometers of pedestrian fences have been installed in places of road accident concentration, 2 thousand pedestrian crossings and 2 thousand traffic lights facilities have been modernized, and a specialized website has been launched to publish games, tests, exercises to train children and adults in safe use of motor roads.

Summing up the press conference, Arsen Kudaev added that an important element in the RTA prevention, in addition to advocacy and public awareness work, is documented recording of road traffic rules violations. The Republic has established the State Budgetary Institution “The Safe Republic”. With the help of technical infrastructure its employees record thousands of road traffic violations every day. Since 2015 they have identified 2 million 373 thousand violations. The use of technical means to record road traffic rules violations has allowed to reduce RTAs number, as the awareness of imminent punishment for the violations committed is a very efficient preventive measure.

At the end of the press conference all its participants could get acquainted with the safety vehicle by visiting one of the event in the children's health camp “Raduga” (“Rainbow”). Children also had an opportunity to ask questions to the organizers of the “Towards Safety” social campaign.

The social campaign in the Kabardino-Balkar Republic will last until the end of the week. After that, it will be welcomed in the Republic of North North Ossetia – Alania.